Perry Compares Indictment to IRS Scandal

The indictment of Governor Rick Perry on charges of abuse of power and coercion follows a general pattern in the U.S. of the “rule of law not being followed,” Perry said this morning on Fox News Sunday, adding it’s partly the result of a “government out of control.”

“The issue here really goes back to the rule of law,” Perry told host Shannon Bream. “We’re not securing the border as the Constitution calls us to. When you add the IRS scandal that’s going on and the outside of the rule of law there, and then you look at what’s happened in Austin, Texas with this grand jury, I think there is some extraordinary concern in this country with the rule of law not being followed.”

The IRS scandal refers to an inspector general’s finding last year that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative Tea Party groups by delaying their applications for tax-exempt status and making excessive requests for information. The controversy was recently re-ignited by the revelation that two years’ worth of emails from the IRS official who oversees those groups were deleted in a 2011 computer crash, with no backups available.

“Too many things are being decided in arenas that shouldn’t be decided from the standpoint of a government that’s out of control,” Perry said. “People want to get back to the rule of law.”

The governor also pointed to two prominent liberals who have been critical of the Perry indictment. David Axelrod, a Democratic political consultant who served as a senior advisor to President Obama, said in a Twitter post that the Perry indictment seemed “pretty sketchy.”

Meanwhile, Texas Democrats are firing back on Perry’s claim that the prosecution is a “farce,” saying in an email this morning that the special prosecutor assigned to the case, Mike McCrum, was a “U.S. prosecutor under George W. Bush whose name was submitted for U.S. Attorney by Sen. John Cornyn.”

“The only farce is Governor Perry’s denial. Perry has betrayed his fellow Texans and its time for him to step down,” Texas Democratic Party head Will Hailer said.

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Texas Governor Rick Perry is facing accusations he broke the law two times when he threatened to veto state funding for a unit of the Travis County District Attorney’s Office that investigates public corruption. The story includes a lot of legal terminology, so here’s a decoder.

Texas Governor Rick Perry firmly rejected criminal charges connected to his 2013 veto of state funding for a public corruption unit in the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, labeling the prosecution a “farce” and promising to defend himself vigorously. “I cannot and I will not allow this to happen,” Perry said at a brief news conference at the State Capitol this afternoon. “I intend to fight against those who would erode our state’s constitution and laws purely for political purposes, and I intend to win,” he said.

For the first time in nearly a century, the Texas governor is facing felony charges . Rick Perry has been indicted by a Travis County grand jury for abuse of office and coercion. The charges mean the sitting governor will be booked and arraigned (with fingerprints and a mugshot); they carry possible jail sentences up to 109 years. At the heart of the charges is whether or not Perry abused his power by threatening to veto $7.5 million in state funding for the Travis County District Attorney's Public Integrity Unit. How did we get here? We've collected KUT's coverage of this story up until this point to bring you up to date. It begins with the arrest of Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg last year.

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